Until the 2010s and even then some, the only time implied asexual and aromantic peopl appeared in media was when they were either "broken" abuse victims who needed to be 'fixed' or, more commonly, evil villains.

Media which features characters with psychopathic traits often try to play up their inhuman nature as much as possible. Many decide a good way to hammer the point home is to have the character reject all forms of sexuality. It's the norm for humans to feel sexual attraction (or at least romantic attraction), so something must be fundamentally wrong when someone rejects such basic instincts. This trope also enforces the idea of heteronormativity, alongside similar tropes like Depraved Homosexual and Psycho Lesbian.

Villainous Asexual characters often also dismiss friendships, familial relationships, and other human relationships as well. This usually means the villain Hates Everyone Equally. They tend to have a Lack of Empathy as well. Characters might be interested in nothing but their work or might have a near-sexual interest in sadism. A fairly frequent variation sees them as being not only sexual, but quite adept at sex... so long as it furthers their agenda. They frequently play the part of a lover, even if they don't love.

This trait is contrary to psychopathic pathology, which typically features a strong tendency for promiscuous behavior. Most likely, writers did not do the research and assumed a lack of emotions also means they cannot enjoy sex and therefore would not want it.

The Joker tends to be portrayed as completely uninterested in sex, only caring about his "jokes" and schemes. While he is willing to partake in sex, he only ever does as part of an Evil Plan, manipulation, or because he wants to make a sick joke about it. For example, the self-titled graphic novel has him rape a woman named Shelly, the wife of one of his henchmen and the book's POV character, Jonny Frost, as a fucked up way of making things "even" between the two after Frost withheld the fact he had a meeting with Two-Face.

In Perfume, the Villain Protagonist is obsessed with the scents of nubile virgins, though he has no sexual interest in them, or anyone else. He hires a prostitute solely for the purpose of an experiment to capture her scent.

Vargas from the James Bond movie Thunderball does not drink, does not smoke, and does not make love. Instead, he is a cold, hardened killer.

Demons in the Bartimaeus Trilogy are asexual but certainly are aware that humans are not often asexual. They use this to their advantage as much as they possibly can, distracting or disturbing the magicians who summon them with various attractive forms that may or may not match the spirit's actual gender (insofar as they have one). Bartimaeus remarks at one point in The Ring of Solomon that his repertoire of forms is pretty well nothing but horrible monsters and pretty girls.

Dexter: Dexter Morgan is uninterested in sex, but willing enough to keep his wife, Rita, convinced that he's a normal man.

Harry Potter: Voldemort cannot feel love, thus is definitely aromantic, and shows no sexual interest in the book canon. But, if you consider Harry Potter and the Cursed Child canon, it gets subverted: he fathered one child, Delphini.

Codename Villanelle: The titular Villanelle enjoys manipulating people, and using sex to do so, particularly authority figures, but admits that she doesn't really like the act itself.

In the first season of Dexter, Dexter Morgan claims to find sex "undignified" and intentionally dates a rape victim in order to avoid it. Later subverted as since he does start to care about his family and, by season 3, he enjoys having sex with Rita.

Sherlock: Moriarty fits this trope, only showing interest in any sex to manipulate those around him.

Daly from Black Mirror: USS Callister, who is portrayed as deliberately asexual both in reality — where it underscores his social awkwardness (there are several key moments in the episode indicating that the privileged people are attractive and sexually active, at least from Daly's perspective, and he resents them and his inability to fit in) and is used as a way to show the development of his psychopathic tendencies, as he clearly wants Nanette in a selfish way where he really wants her to be interested in him and the things he likes yet gets so angry at her for being "attracted to his mind but not to him" that he clones her into his Infinity mod, which he uses to torture the living consciousnesses of people he doesn't like — and in Infinity — where his player character is desperate to recreate the Celibate Hero world of his favourite show Space Fleet, but has taken this power too far and, yes, literally tortures people.

This is possibly true of Dr. Hugo Strange in Batman: Arkham City. In patient interviews he seems particularly detached when talking about the relationships of the inmates and at one point states openly that he's never been in love.

^^ When Luthien was singing before Morgoth, Tolkien implies that Morgoth thought about raping Luthien. He was too busy fantasizing about it to get the job done before she zapped him with the sleep spell, though.

It's not an inversion. It's the Celibate Hero for villians. Is this about villians who are openly asexual, or villians who pretend to have a particular preference to manipulate, while secretly being asexual? Because the examples could go either way.

It would not. Sheldon is not malicious; somewhat insensitive and a Jerkass but genuinely benevolent. And no, Generality, you twit, it is NOT a 'plausible depiction'. As an autistic person I'm offended by your bullshit.

Also, keep in mind that sexual orientation is not the same as romantic orientation, and you can have one without the other. Lots of asexual characters in fiction are also aromantic, but let's not automatically equate one with the other when adding examples.

Sorry, what's the criterion here? Is it just a villain who shows no sexual/romantic interest? If so, most villains would probably qualify. Or, at least, most of the ones that aren't would-be rapists...

Umbee, how would you differentiate between asexuality and aromanticism in this context? I mean, I know they're different, but works of fiction rarely go to the trouble of distinguishing them.

^^ I think it should be where a villain actively rejects offers of romance or shows disgust at it to make this clear. "Villain is not shown having sex" is shoehorning unless it's very conspicuous (like a setting where Everybody Has Lots Of Sex).

This is definitely a trope though, despite the unfortunate implications. Depraved Bisexual and Good People Have Good Sex are some related tropes—basically anything that defies the norm is depicted as abberant and indicative of bad moral character in fiction.

The description could mention how once function, in more modern works, is to enforce how heteronormativity is good (because Hollywood does, or did until 2018, function largely on that), without having to make the villain gay.

Daly from Black Mirror: USS Callister, who is portrayed as deliberately asexual both in reality — where it underscores his social awkwardness (there are several key moments in the episode indicating that the privileged people are attractive and sexually active, at least from Daly's perspective, and he resents them and his inability to fit in) and is used as a way to show the development of his psychopathic tendencies, as he clearly wants Nanette in a selfish way where he really wants her to be interested in him and the things he likes yet gets so angry at her for being "attracted to his mind but not to him" that he clones her into his Infinity mod, which he uses to torture the living consciousnesses of people he doesn't like — and in Infinity — where his player character is desperate to recreate the Celibate Hero world of his favourite show Space Fleet, but has taken this power too far and, yes, literally tortures people.

Mention should definitely be made in the description that a fairly frequent variation sees them as being not only sexual, but quite adept at sex... so long as it furthers their agenda. They frequently play the part of a lover, even if they don't love.

Voldemort is mentioned above - he definitely cannot feel love, thus is definitely aromantic, and shows no sexual interest in the book canon. But, if you consider Harry Potter And The Cursed Child canon, it gets subverted: he fathered one child, Delphini.

The Golden Touch: In the opening number, King Midas mentions that he has no interest in romance, simply because he Loves Only Gold. While he's not exactly villainous, he is shown to be a selfish Jerkass in this part, before his development later on.

In Dark Elf Historia, one of Freylia's missions is to seduce local Mad Scientist Dr. Isaac. Unfortunately for Freylia, Isaac has no interest in sex, but he does have experiments, for which he needs a healthy young woman.

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